The Truth Behind the Luo Family Tragedy?

The two humans and one dog involuntarily backed away, putting distance between themselves and Qi Yuan. The trail-tracking hound's words were simply far too terrifying. And it neatly explained why Qi Yuan, supposedly a newcomer, possessed such tremendous strength. Stringing all of it together made everything seem completely logical. Qi Yuan looked at the group before him as if staring at a bunch of idiots. "Did all of you drop a screw? If I were the Sea God, why wouldn't I just marry my child bride directly? Why would I go through all this extra trouble just to marry her?" Qi Yuan felt that truly clever people like himself were simply too scarce in this world. His words left An Qiao completely dumbfounded. The man in black martial attire was somewhat bewildered... He badly wanted to point out: what did any of that have to do with whether he was the Sea God or not? Still, if the man really were the Sea God, he likely wouldn't bother chatting with them this much. That eased his vigilance slightly. Could it be that he truly wasn't the Sea God? At this moment, a ten-meter-tall wave surged up from the sea, rolling in from the distance across the water and sweeping toward the beach. The towering crest of white water was monumental in its momentum. Every villager trembled in terror, and whatever rebellious defiance the village chief had harbored evaporated into nothingness. The exact spot targeted by this colossal wave was none other than the eight-man sedan chair. Right now, Xiao Mei was trapped inside. If the wave crashed down on her, she would certainly die. Seeing this, Qi Yuan sighed softly. "Why isn't this going like on TV? Don't tell me... I have to crash the wedding ahead of schedule?" On television, people always crashed the wedding right when the questions were being asked. Nobody was asking questions yet! He took a step forward, preparing to strike. Yet right then, an unexpected change erupted. From high in the sky came a sudden, thundering roar: "Die... all of you must die! Every single one must die!" A stumbling silhouette appeared, exuding the formidable aura of the Jade-Blood Realm. The figure manifested abruptly and shoved a palm forward. Blood-red baleful qi boiled, shimmering with jade-white light, within which eighteen blood-red palms could faintly be seen. At the same time, the terrifying screech of a monstrous beast rang out. Clearly, this powerful Jade-Blood Realm man was unleashing his innate martial technique. The mighty strike slammed forcefully into the towering wave. Eighteen blood palms battered the great wave in unbroken succession. *Bang!* The rolling wave was shattered under the force of the strike. "That's... the madman!" "Why is he attacking the Sea God?!" An Qiao wore a look of utter astonishment. The one who had stepped in was none other than the deranged man they had been secretly tailing. The deranged man hovered in the air, his hair disheveled and wild, obscuring his face. Yet standing in midair, he exerted immense pressure on nearly everyone present. A palm strike like that surpassed normal human capability. Even if faced with a thousand cavalry, he could likely break out unscathed. Having smashed the wave, his clothes soaked through, the deranged man stood amid the spray with a savage expression: "Demons... all deserve to die! All must die!" With that, he struck at the sea again. Each blow crashed into the water, raising great swells, but accomplished nothing. The village chief stood upon the raised platform, shivering violently. The other villagers also felt deep terror welling up inside them. "He truly is completely mad. Venting wildly like this and squandering his blood-martial qi... when the Sea God appears, what will he have left to fight with?" An Qiao said anxiously. "Just who is this man? Yunyan County clearly has no Jade-Blood Realm martial artists!" The man in black martial attire looked suspicious and puzzled as he watched the madman battering the surface of the sea. "He is... Luo Bufan!" A grave voice suddenly rang out. Two men quietly appeared near An Qiao. Seeing the newcomer, An Qiao's face lit up with delight. "Captain!" Seeing the captain put her heart at ease. Although the captain was not in the Jade-Blood Realm, he had achieved Qi-Blood mastery and was the strongest among them. The captain's gaze fell upon Qi Yuan, a flicker of astonishment passing through his eyes. "You actually made it in here." Qi Yuan looked at Chen Fan and shrugged. "What a coincidence. We actually got matched together." Seeing that the captain and Qi Yuan knew each other, An Qiao and the man in black martial attire let their previous doubts vanish into thin air. The trail-tracking hound wore a strange expression, sniffing hard with its nose again, but said nothing. In the next breath, everyone's attention shifted back to the deranged man in the distance. "Luo Bufan? He's that Luo Bufan from the Luo Residence?" An Qiao showed sudden understanding. "Wasn't he only at the Qi-Blood Realm just recently? How did he reach Jade-Blood?" Luo Bufan going mad was easy enough to understand; after all, his entire family had been slaughtered, and his fiancée's family had also been exterminated. However, for his strength to leap across such a massive gulf so suddenly was exceedingly abnormal. "Because... the people of the Luo and Chen families were all killed by him." Chen Fan's gaze was deep and profoundly complex. "What?!" An Qiao and the man in black martial attire were utterly shocked. This answer was completely beyond their expectations. Their mission was to uncover the hidden truth behind the Luo and Chen family massacres. Finding the culprit alone was not enough; they also needed to discover the motive and the underlying reasons. "Could it be... that to increase his strength, he slaughtered his own kin to extract their bloodline?" An Qiao's expression turned complicated. The expressions of the other two men in black martial attire beside them shifted repeatedly. "What a ruthless monster—wiping out his entire clan just to advance a single realm!" Chen Fan remained silent, merely staring out at the sea ahead. Meanwhile, Qi Yuan narrowed his eyes, gazing at the crazed Luo Bufan. "He did indeed kill them, but... there might be a far more interesting reason behind it." [Luo Bufan: Early Jade-Blood Realm martial artist. Crazed and deranged, slaughtering his own kin with his bare hands will remain the lifelong agony of his existence.] This was the hidden information Qi Yuan saw today. When he saw Luo Bufan yesterday, the information had been different, mostly concerning Luo Bufan's martial arts. The group watched Luo Bufan rave in madness, but not one dared step forward to intervene. In Luo Bufan's current state, trying to stop him might cost them their lives. Just then, the village chief on the raised platform suddenly went stiff. His cloudy gaze turned deep and bottomless, and his eyes shifted into slit serpent pupils like those of a cobra. He abruptly rose into the air, his voice chillingly cold. "Luo Bufan, you slaughtered your entire family, and now... you come to disrupt my grand wedding. What are your intentions?!" The old village chief had shockingly had his soul seized by the Sea God, who was now dwelling within his body. Above the sea, Luo Bufan froze. He turned around, his eyes brimming with murderous intent as he glared at the old village chief. "Monsters that bring chaos to the world all deserve to die!" With a furious roar, he lashed out. Yet this strike was blocked by the Sea God. A trace of disdain flashed in the Sea God's eyes. "I may be a monster, but I never kill my own kind. And you? You personally wiped out your entire family. Parents, elders, even young children—you spared none. What does that make you?" "No, I didn't!" Luo Bufan froze. In his mind, countless scenes tumbled through. He saw pair after pair of terrified eyes, and his parents lying in pools of blood. "Hmph. Sparing not even your own parents just to raise your strength—what kind of thing are you?" The Sea God's eyes were full of contempt. "Are you saying that for the sake of slaying demons and gaining power, anything can be discarded?" "No, I didn't!" Luo Bufan roared, tumbling straight out of the sky. He clutched his head, seemingly refusing to accept this reality. "After slaughtering your entire family, you felt remorse and agonizing regret. With nowhere left to hide, you went to see your fiancée, Chen Xinlian. She kindly took you in and cared for you. In the end, she accidentally discovered the truth—that you had slain your own parents. Flustered and enraged, terrified the secret would leak and ruin your reputation as a demon-slaying hero, you panicked, killed your poor fiancée, and then, while you were at it... wiped out her entire family too!" Every single word of the Sea God stabbed straight into the heart. Luo Bufan collapsed to the ground, his mind completely broken, hands clutching his forehead. "Stop talking! Stop talking!" In his mind, memories whirled madly; he seemed to see Xinlian dying in his arms, her eyes still holding a smile and a trace of trepidation. At this moment, Luo Bufan's aura plummeted rapidly, his mind in utter disarray. Nearby, the expressions of the Demon Suppression Division members shifted drastically. "So this is the truth!" "Not good! The Sea God has noticed us, and he won't let us leave alive!" "We're finished! We're dead for sure this time!" They never imagined a routine investigation would attract the attention of a great Jade-Blood Realm demon. "Luo Bufan really is a ruthless brute. If he could recover his full strength, he might be able to suppress the Sea God. What a pity... in his current state, we can't use him to let dog eat dog!" An Qiao couldn't help saying. "Hey, what did dogs ever do to you? Why am I catching strays here?!" the trail-tracking hound spoke up in its own defense. The other Demon Suppression Division members present largely agreed with An Qiao's sentiment. Luo Bufan was certainly not a good person. But was the Sea God a good demon? Two of a kind—it ought to be dog eat dog. "Luo Bufan... shouldn't you atone with your death?" the Sea God spoke, his voice laced with bewitchment. Just then, a female corpse clad in bridal attire suddenly drifted up from the sea. The corpse opened her eyes, looked toward Luo Bufan, and her gaze turned violently vicious: "Luo Bufan, give me back my family's lives!" "Xin... Xinlian!" Looking at the bridal corpse, Luo Bufan closed his eyes in agony. "Could it be... I was truly wrong?" Demons had run rampant, leaving Yunyan County teetering on the brink of ruin. Then, out of the blue one day, a close friend brought news that a colossal demon would emerge in Yunyan County. Once this colossal demon manifested, Yunyan County would be annihilated. Yunyan County was running out of time. Luo Bufan, long hailed as a demon-slaying hero, was desperate, yet powerless. Without the strength of the Jade-Blood Realm, one couldn't even intervene in an ordeal of that magnitude. And that day, his friend had coincidentally and casually mentioned a bloody method to elevate one's power. At that moment, a flicker of temptation had stirred in his heart, only to be suppressed. On one side stood every commoner of Yunyan County; on the other, his closest and dearest kin. Yet in the days that followed, he had been in a state of severe daze and delirium, even suffering hallucinations. In the end, when he came to his senses, everyone was dead. Dead. Every single one was dead. "Brother Bufan, I originally thought you were a man of honor and merely mentioned a method to raise your strength. Who would have thought... you actually used it? *Sigh*, it's all my fault. I shouldn't have told you. I have failed your mother, and failed Xinlian even more. I failed to protect her." At that moment, a young man stepped out from the crowd, wearing an expression of guilt and profound self-reproach. He looked at Xinlian's corpse clad in bridal robes, a glimmer of deep affection passing through his eyes. Luo Bufan sat paralyzed on the spot, his spirit shattered. The young man continued, "Xinlian will never forgive you, and neither will I!" The aura around Luo Bufan turned chaotic, his blood-martial qi boiling erratically as if an inner demon had invaded his mind. "What an entertaining soap opera." Not far away, lacking melon seeds to munch on, Qi Yuan could only clap his hands. "Everyone, no matter how far or near, arrived right on cue." "Huh?" An Qiao, who had been engrossed in Luo Bufan's ruthlessness, froze slightly at Qi Yuan's words. "What do you mean?" "Don't you think Luo Bufan's good friend appeared a bit too conveniently? It's just like a TV drama. No, wait, this is a TV drama. How could reality have such neat coincidences? A whole group of people constantly bickering and chattering at one guy, just waiting for him to..." Qi Yuan didn't finish the rest of his sentence. An Qiao looked thoughtful. The man in black martial attire, however, was in a panic. "What do we do? Once Luo Bufan dies, we're next! This Sea God is obviously no good demon!" "Why hasn't the mission concluded yet? Could there really be some hidden story behind this?!" The Demon Suppression Division members present grew extraordinarily tense. The Sea God's cold gaze settled on Luo Bufan, his voice piercing to the core: "Luo Bufan, if you do not sever your own heart meridians, how can you face your kin?" "I..." "Brother Bufan, a life for a life. If you sever your own heart meridians, Xinlian... might just forgive you." Luo Bufan knelt on the ground, his hair wild, his mind clouded. He raised his hand and rested it upon his own crown, as if it would come crashing down in the very next breath to atone with his life. Yet right at that moment, Chen Fan suddenly leaped forward and shouted, "Luo Bufan, what's done is done! The most urgent priority right now is to slay this monster! Do you really want the hundred and seventy-six members of the Luo family to have died in vain? Kill it first, and it won't be too late to die afterward!" Hearing Chen Fan's words, Luo Bufan's palm froze in midair. He seemed to ponder Chen Fan's words. "Brother Bufan, can you face Xinlian?" Luo Bufan's friend spoke once more. "Back then, you and I pursued Xinlian together, and in the end, I chose to step aside. Didn't you promise me you would love and protect Xinlian for the rest of your life? And what happened? You personally murdered Xinlian! She died at the hands of the demon-slaying hero she admired most, the man she loved with all her heart!" The clarity that had briefly returned to Luo Bufan's eyes grew clouded once more. A death wish sprouted in his heart yet again. "If I were you, I would take my own life right here and now," Luo Bufan's friend said again, before turning his gaze to Chen Fan. "Do you honestly believe the words of these imperial lapdogs? Back then, when we begged the imperial court for help, how did they treat us? They made us raise a hundred thousand taels of silver. And when our two families scraped together the silver? What happened? They pocketed the silver and did nothing! What right does an imperial dog like him have to interfere in Yunyan County's affairs? By virtue of the official robes on his back?" Luo Bufan's friend spoke with righteous indignation, seemingly harboring extreme resentment toward the imperial court. Yet at that moment, Chen Fan forcefully tore away a layer of skin from his face, his voice heavy: "By virtue of the fact that I am... Luo Bufan!" With the human-skin mask torn away, Chen Fan's face shockingly revealed features eighty percent identical to Luo Bufan's.